BITAC Sales & Marketing 2025 Panel: How to Lead with Vision and Values in the Hospitality Industry

By Jim Nelson | April 7, 2025

SAN DIEGO, CA — Our sister company, BITAC, recently held its annual Sales & Marketing event, where one of the panels dove into the topic of leading with values and vision. Moderated by Nick Horgan, the chief commercial officer at Amaze Insights, the panel featured the expertise of Candace Banning, who handles sales, marketing, and revenue operations at CoralTree Hospitality; Lovell Casiero, SVP of commercial strategies at PM Hotel Group; Robert Marusi, chief commercial officer at the Hotel Del Coronado Group; and Chris Riccardi, SVP global sales at Peregrine Hospitality.

Here are some highlights from that panel.

NICK HORGAN: Candace, share a little bit about your process and how you keep not just us, but other vendors, to task.

CANDACE BANNING: CoralTree is a very data-driven company, and for me, that’s a learned behavior. When I get asked those tough questions — “What’s our strongest market segment? What’s our weakest industry? What’s happening with the sales teams?” — I have to be able to deliver facts that are accurate. And anyone who manages databases knows what’s going into the system is what you’re going to get out. It’s that constant training, it’s like, “If you have an account, don’t build a new one, search for one first,” and make sure everything is correct. So, it’s staying curious and pushing to get the facts and get everything right.”

NH: Lovell, when you decided to write your book, Lead Like a Girl: A Leader’s Journey from Aspirations to Achievements, I would love to know where your inspiration came from.

LOVELL CASIERO: I wrote a book to enhance my personal brand, because I want to do speaking and coaching and workshops; that’s my dream job. I had a coach through the Castell Program, and she said, “Write a book. Everybody will ask you to speak.” That’s not exactly true, by the way, but writing the book was life changing because I thought I was going to write a book on leadership, and I was going to tell how I got to the boardroom and I was going to impact the up and coming, not just women, but leaders of the industry, or any industry, to give you my advice of how to get there. What I didn’t realize is that in order to tell the leadership lessons, I had to tell the life lessons, and it got up close and personal. I had to tell about dad going to prison for 55 years. I had to tell about the bad decisions I made in my twenties. But it was therapy, it was awesome. And now, when I quote things from that book, I’m so grateful for the story and for the life I’ve had. And if you read my book, or have read my book, my favorite chapter started with a letter to my younger self when I was turning 60 and writing the book. And apparently that letter was very short and not a chapter, and I got the inspiration to write the decades that built me, and it’s my favorite chapter. The hardest decade of my life was when I was 30 and I had to run the Ministry for my dad, and it taught me the most leadership lessons that I carry into today. He thanks me 30 years later for what I did to keep his ministry going, and my response to him is, “Dad, I didn’t do it for you. It was way too hard. I did it for Him.”

NH: Robert, when you’re evaluating talent and deciding the right person you’re going to bring into the organization, I’d love to just hear a little bit about how you make those decisions.

ROBERT MARUSI: It’s really based on awareness, gratitude, and respect. Those are my key pillars that allow me to get the most out of people and to really get to trust. When you can unlock the trust part, that’s when the magic happens in terms of outcomes and organizational structure. So, when I’m talking to people, or I know people, it has to be a trusted aspect. They have to take part in those ideals that are very important to me in that organizational structure to be able to fit in. That gives a broad sense of being able to pick a lot of different people who can bring different values to the table, but work within that structure. For me, it’s always top talent, regardless of title. It’s about hiring leaders, people who other people gravitate to. That could be a coordinator in your organization who’s an incredible leader that people gravitate to. It could be a director who has the ability to have a voice at the table; in my organization, everybody has that seat, and that’s the way I hire.

NH: Chris, what I noticed consistently through this conference is people light up around you. It is consistent, the energy that you bring. How are you doing it? What’s the secret?

CHRIS RICCARDI: I don’t know if there’s a secret sauce. I have been told that I am a connector. I am certainly positive all the time — no matter what is happening in the world or in my life, I can always find some sort of positive spin. I find humor in almost everything. No matter how serious the situation is. I love to laugh, and I can make fun of myself. I can make fun of our CEO, and people are shocked at first in the boardroom, but then they’re like, “This is great.” So, I kind of make things light all the time. I think it was last year’s BITAC conference, I was speaking with Sara Blakely, and she said, “You don’t have to be serious all the time to be taken seriously,” and that’s one of the things that I live by every day.

NH: What I’d like to do now is let the audience ask any questions.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Lovell, what is one [piece of] advice that we can take forward?

LC: I live by a couple of creeds, and one of them is, be authentic; just be yourself. In a corporate environment, so often you feel like you have to put on this persona, and my grandmother told me 30 years ago when she was leaving this world: “Just be yourself. Lovell. No one’s better than you. You’re not better than anyone else.” The other thing that also came up at our table because this amazing woman sitting next to me talked about gratitude and grace, I literally play a game with myself. I try to say “Thank you” 100 times a day. I thank everybody. I thank the airline attendant; I thank the gentleman who just poured my coffee. Gratitude will change your life. It’s really that simple. I’m not an expert and everybody in this room, when it comes to systems and hospitality, is probably way smarter than me, but I just be me.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Robert, when you’re hiring and trying to build a team? Are there certain things that you look for, certain questions you ask in the interview process? What are you looking for in people, outside of skillset?

RM: First and foremost, I try and get to know the person. What’s the authenticity of the person? What value as a human being can they bring to the organization, regardless of what we’re trying to accomplish? What are their values? Can they follow our values?

Often at the higher level of hiring, I’m looking for disruptors. I’m looking for people who can get into change and transformation, especially today. Can they follow a change-and-transformation plan? Can they get into a vision-mapping process? Do they have that mind of disruption, of being a futurist and thinking differently? Because we are up against some headwinds that are coming way faster than our industry is travelling, we’ve got to get people who have agility. How quick can they make a decision? How are they not stuck in a model? How can they be agile in futurist thinking?

Those are some of the elements I look for, and that changes over time. What I was looking for 10 years ago in a leader or a team member is quite a bit different than what I look for today.